Improving Sanitation and Hygiene in Rural East Asia

Steve Nettleton: For Rakimi, water for hygiene is a seasonal luxury. The only water
source for her village in the hills above the Indonesian city of
Yogyakarta is the same pond used by cattle. In the dry season, she
and her neighbors must pay for water to be trucked up from the
city below. Her family's only choice of toilet is a pit dug into the
hillside.

Rakimi's children have been suffering from an unexplained rash on
their arms and chests. She says doctors blame the problem on poor
sanitation.

Rakimi: It's a struggle every day, balancing going to get water and taking
care of my children. I expect the government should provide us
running water and our own latrine, or any other donors that might
help us.

Steve Nettleton: Rakimi is one of more than 800 million people in East Asia who
live without sanitation, a figure that represents nearly half the total
population in the region.

A study financed by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation
Program, or WSP, found that in four East Asian countries,
economic losses from poor sanitation and hygiene are equivalent to
two-percent of their combined GDP.

Three quarters of those without sanitation live in rural areas, where
infant mortality and malnutrition are notably higher than in the
cities.

Anupama Rao Singh: It is the women who really face the consequences or cope with the
consequences of the lack of sanitation, whether because of
continued ill-health of their children, whether they have concerns
of privacy that they themselves face, or whether they have to bear
the cost of treatment in looking after their children who fall ill
frequently.

Steve Nettleton: On the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, a consensus for
change. Representatives from 14 East Asian countries gathered for
two days of talks aimed at boosting efforts to improve sanitation
and hygiene.

The event, co-hosted by UNICEF, the WSP and the World Health
Organization, was the highest-level gathering of its kind in the
region. It ended with a new call on governments to increase
investment, particularly to benefit the poor, and to strengthen
regional cooperation in tackling the problem.

Jamal Saghir: So, we’d like to see more political will. We would like to see some
policy decisions so that an adequate environment for investment is
there. And when you have this political will and the right
regulation and right framework, investment will flow. We would
like to see a framework in which sanitation is looked at much more
comprehensively than we have seen so far in some countries.

Steve Nettleton: Representatives agreed to hold a follow up meeting in two years, a
chance to measure how far pledges made today go to improving
the lives of women and children in developing countries of Eastern
Asia.

In Beppu City, Japan, this is Steve Nettleton reporting for UNICEF
Television. Unite for Children.